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Paris 2011: Cooking at Home

8/28/2011 11:42:00 AM

One of the great things about staying at a friend's house, as opposed to a hotel, was that we got to cook a lot! So, for this post, I would like to share with you all the things we cooked, plus a couple of little picnic-type assembled meals. We tended towards light salads, to balance out all the pastries we'd be eating! The recipes mainly came from the breathtaking Ottolenghi cookbook (which I have now ordered, because it's amazing), with a bit from Bill Granger and Gwyneth Paltrow (yes, really - and it was actually quite good!) Ok, allons-y!

Day 1, Breakfast: Bill Granger's Peachy French Toast

I didn't contribute to this breakfast at all, apart from in the eating. We arrived in Paris at 9:30 in the morning, and whilst we unpacked and settled in, Clarice whipped up this gorgeous breakfast! Thick slices of brioche were stuffed with roasted peaches, dipped in beaten egg and fried in butter. Yum, yum. I loved how the peaches lightened the taste of the french toast.

This meal (again, from Ottolenghi) was a team effort: I was in charge of grilling the peaches, Sandra chopped the herbs and Clarice made the gallettes!

The gallette is made of puff pastry, crème fraîche, roasted sweet potato (or pumpkin) and chèvre. A sprinkling of pepitas, garlic, chilli, and parsley added some spark to what would otherwise have been a rather sweet tart. I love the flavour combos from Ottolenghi - lots of them were quite unusual, but they were all universally tasty! I have to make this tart again at home, I know my mum would love it!

Lunch, Day 3: Baguette, Pâté, Cheese

This was, clearly, not something we cooked, but rather a little picnic lunch we had in the Jardin de Luxembourg: duck pâté, blue cheese and baguette. Miam miam.

I don't think you can go wrong with fresh figs, fresh watercress and good quality honey and goats cheese.

The radish and broad bean salad was easily my favourite of the lot. I love broad beans but never cook with them as they're a bit of a pain to pod and shell, so I always think of them as a special treat. Luckily, Picard sold high quality broad beans, already podded and shelled - yay! The salad is served with a green tahini: a mixture of tahini, water, lemon juice, garlic and parsley. I love tahini, so obviously loved the sauce, and it adds a bit of extra protein and vitamins to the dish - lovely!

Day 4, Lunch:Leftovers

This lunch included a baguette, a little cheese platter (leftover blue cheese, pâté, figs and goats cheese), the remaining sweet potato gallette, and more of that fabulous broad bean salad!

For the final night of my Paris trip, we went a little special with dinner! We started with an apéritif of broad bean bruschetta and pink champagne...

The recipe for the bruschetta comes from Nigella's Feast, and was fabulous! Nigella says to use fresh broad beans, but we found that the frozen ones, cooked briefly in boiling water, worked just fine.

The main course was a salmon salad from the Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook - it included rare salmon, lettuce, beetroot, cherry tomatoes, griddled corn and spring onions dressed in a lime vinaigrette. It was fantastic! A pleasant surprise!

And in total contrast to the light, fresh flavours of the rest of the meal, dessert was a totally indulgent batch of chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips. I'd brought the peanut butter chips from Australia as a gift, and I'm glad I did. We actually saw the same peanut butter chips in an American shop in Paris, but I don't think they looked after their goods too well - it was really hot and stuffy inside the shop, and their chocolates were all melty and gross! The PB chips also cost €8 - eek!

Cute bakeware!

Rather than a pure peanut-butter cookie, we wanted to make something with a little contrast and depth. So, we went for a dark chocolate cookie dough - we used the recipe for the Magnolia Bakery's chocolate drop cookies, and replaced their chocolate chips, heath bars and nuts with the peanut butter chips.

I was surprised by how delicious the peanut butter chips tasted by themselves, and we did more than a few little taste tests! I really have to make the Magnolia Bakery peanut butter fudge brownies again, this time with proper peanut butter chips on the top!

Scooping out the dough...

... and baked!

We ate these on the couch, whilst watching Arrested Development on DVD - perfect.